Behind the Facade
by Spark Writer
Summary: What you didn't know about the 'Sherlock' characters . . . what's really going on in those minds, brilliant or not.
1. Mycroft Holmes

**Enjoy!  
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**Desclaimer: I do not own the BBC's Sherlock. Sigh.  
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**Mycroft has never liked the rain. **Consequently, he takes the precaution of carrying a sturdy umbrella with him everywhere he sets foot. It has the added benefit of making him look like one of those "impending doom" sorts. He rather enjoys that.

**Mycroft's deductive abilities surpass Sherlock's. **However, he does not possess the drive and passion to fuel a career as a detective. He resorts to employing his talents for security and counter-intelligence purposes only.

**He fell in love once, and fell hard. **The bitter irony is the fact that Sherlock later stood over her body, deducing her cause of death. Mycroft has elected never to make the mistake of loving like that again. He truly believes that caring is not an advantage.

**Mycroft secretly loathes his own first name. **He reasons that such a pretentious person as himself should not be in competition with such a pretentious name.

**He suffers from chronic depression. **Mycroft has a general dissatisfaction with life, having always been practical, responsible, and coolly logical. He occasionally resents Sherlock for choosing a more exciting path.

**Mycroft has always liked jigsaw puzzles. **He feels that there is something childishly reasonable in them, and he has often used puzzles as a medium when attempting to rationalize with his younger brother. He sniffs at Sherlock's affection for Cluedo, thinking the game, "Abominable!"

**He lives alone. **When he returns home after a trying day, no one waits for him with an exasperated but fond expression, saying, "You look tired. I'll put the kettle on." He genuinely values his solitude, but when he looks to the future, he sees no change. No warmth ahead.

**Mycroft does not want children. **Though he is undoubtedly certain that any offspring of his would be exceptional and leave their mark upon the world, after raising one good man—yet coming so very close to failing, he doesn't want to tempt fate a second time.

**He enjoys serving his country. **Even so, his mind gets away from him, wondering and desiring without his permission. And because he is his father's son, he puts these covert plans away, perhaps permanently. He _will _do his duty. He _will _make the hard choice. He knows that one can only pretend for so long that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

**Mycroft cares deeply for Sherlock. **He is unorthodox to the extreme in his motives of protection, but has a fatherly fondness for his younger brother. Mycroft feels extremely agitated when hearing Sherlock refer to him as his, "arch enemy." He is fully aware that he is the one to blame.

**He completely approves of John. **Mycroft thinks John an excellent partner, influence, and—dare he say it—friend for Sherlock. Though he kidnaps the doctor at least twice a week, Mycroft is enormously fond John, the only person to date who actually _prefers_ Sherlock's company.

**Mycroft often fantasizes about strangling his brother. **Fortunately, the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Therefore, he can hate Sherlock even as he loves him, because the high-functioning sociopath _matters _to him_._

**He despises Anderson's very existence. **Mycroft nurses a deep dislike for anyone who insistently considers themselves a genius. Having to be so obvious about it, means, by default, that they aren't a genius in the least. The difference between Anderson and Sherlock is that Sherlock hardly ever refers to himself as a genius. He simply refers to others as idiots. Mycroft can respect that.

**Mycroft prides himself in his ability to mask his flaws from the world. **Unlike his brother, he can pass off as "normal," though he possess quite a few anti-social tendencies. He never once called Sherlock a freak, though the two men have had many a row over Sherlock's reckless personality. It was Mycroft who forced Sherlock to detox, saying that it was, "for Sherlock's own good."

He has not been thanked.

**He has a bit too much fun playing the role of the sinister, secretive and controlling government official. **After all, if Sherlock gets the stunning grey eyes and impressive height, shouldn't he have his fun?

**Mycroft has a dreadfully low opinion of humanity as a whole. **This is perhaps the one agreement he willingly shares with Sherlock. The masses of dim-witted people are torturous to both of them.

**He will always look back upon one aspect of his childhood without regret. **Pirates.

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**Well, I'll leave you to your deductions...if you liked this, comment and review! Much appreciated.**

**-Spark Writer-  
**


	2. Molly Hooper

**Here's hoping you enjoy my interpretation of Molly Hooper. Read your hearts out!  
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**Molly adores singing in the shower. **She does her best not slip up when working in the mortuary, as "Friday I'm in Love" cost her a few glares the last time.

**She has taken up knitting just for Sherlock. **Seeing the consulting detective's obvious attachment to his navy scarf, she attempted to knit him a scarf of her own. Unfortunately, it looks more like a glorified rag. She keeps it in her handbag, unable to work up the confidence to present it to Sherlock.

**Molly is soft, but she has a core of steel. **Working as a forensic pathologist, she isn't at all put off by the more unpleasant details that most would choose to avoid; blood, corpses and death.

**She's always had an "anxious doctor" mentality. **Fearing that she would make a fatal mistake and possibly kill a patient, she chose to be a forensic pathologist because the people she deals with are already dead.

**Molly is desperately envious of Irene. **She barely contains her jealousy, and often tries to work out just how Sherlock recognized Miss Adler from, "not her face."

**She is quite lonely. **She's even gone so far as to disregard Christmas to work in the morgue. She attempts to form relationships with other men, but never can fully dedicate herself; a piece of her heart will always be for Sherlock. Molly was much surprised when none other than Greg Lestrade asked her out, though she declined as gently as she could, as she doesn't have feelings for Greg beyond the platonic.

**Molly is rather obsessed with Glee. **Something about the always-effervescent characters distracts her from the tiring monotony of the morgue, and the rejection of a certain consulting detective's unrequited feelings.

**She deeply wishes for children. **Molly has always harboured a fondness for them, and to tell the truth, Toby doesn't replace the bubbling warmth of having a child of her very own. She fears that no one will fall in love with her, therefore she'll never get married, and consequently, she'll never have a family. Never have children. It's a scary thought.

**Molly quite likes the color purple. **She thinks it mysterious, calming, deep, and—though she would never admit this—a bit sexy. She often wears purple socks.

**She is aware that Sherlock occasionally takes advantage of her affectionate personality. **He'll compliment the placement of her part, or her makeup, but really he just wants to gain access to bodies and other things. The frequent look of apology on John's face confirms this.

**Molly is fearless. **She would take a bullet for a friend, go through a haunted house (twice!), and—although she isn't always satisfied—has an admirable ability to stand on her own.

**She has a light mania for the Beatles. **And each time Glee performs their interpretation of a Beatles tune, she'll drop all her insecurities and dance around her apartment, happy for a little while.

**Molly has always thought her appearance too plain. **Her weapon of choice is her lovely hair, which she keeps long in order to distract from what she calls, her "dreadfully ordinary form."

**John isn't the only one never to have called Sherlock a freak. **Molly is extremely loyal, and cares deeply for Sherlock, beyond even her blatant schoolgirl crush. She will do anything to help him, anything at all.

**She sometimes doesn't return home at night. **Molly simply falls asleep in her chair while studying a murder victim's liver and wakes up in the stillness of the morgue the following morning, knowing it's too late to go home. She'll put on a brave face and her lipstick, and no one knows the difference.

**Molly lost her father very young. **Because of this, she made endless paper rounds and worked weekends and nights just to put herself through university. She may be seen as the mousy, awkward morgue attendant, but she's quite sharp in her academic abilities.

**She doesn't like nosy people. **Though, upon further contemplation, Sherlock _could_ be considered nosy. Ah, well…her dislike has its exceptions. Exception.

**Molly loves the rain. **It's so magical to her, watching the crystalline drops fall from the sky, drenching the world in seconds, unannounced. When colleagues fuss about the weather and go around handing out umbrellas, she refuses; she doesn't mind getting wet.

And in the rain, no one can tell if you're crying or not.

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**Review! You know you want to...**

**-Spark Writer-  
**


	3. Anderson

*Anderson was once a kind, humble man who did his best to solve crimes without getting on anyone's nerves. And then he met Sherlock Holmes.

*Part of why Anderson really can't stand a _certain consulting detective_, is because of the fact that he has to _work_ so much harder to produce an eighth of a _certain consulting detective's_ brilliance. It really isn't fair. Once, Anderson was so irritated with this inevitability that he pestered Greg Lestrade into asking _a certain consulting detective _to take an identical IQ test with him so they could compare results. What should have been the ultimate intellectual showdown resulted in some rather scathing insults from that certain detective, and Anderson resentfully gave up on his campaign.

*Yes, Anderson has heard people muttering about his hair. Yes, he knows it's rather big. No, he's not trying to look like Sherlock. Deliberately, anyway.

*In his youth, Anderson wasted a lot of brain cells on cocaine—so he finds it most satisfying to participate in drugs bust after drugs bust involving Sherlock Holmes. What he doesn't know, however, is that half of Scotland Yard is already aware of his secret. They really ought to send an IOU to Sherlock for that one.

*Anderson once spent an entire workday wearing a button down that, unbeknownst to him, had "Idiot" printed on the back in neat black marker. Lestrade was never able to pin the culprit, though he has his intuitions.

*John Watson is a fairly ordinary, easygoing, English every-man, and Anderson finds him tolerable. He finds Sherlock utterly intolerable. How do those two work so damn well together? Anderson is still deducing.

*Anderson has an older sister, Rosemary, who is a makeup artist for various theatre productions throughout England. When they were both in university, Rosemary told him that she needed practice for a job application, and managed to get Anderson to allow her to do his makeup. The result was so truly frightening that Rosemary came perilously close to abandoning her career path forever.

*Anderson likes Sergeant Donovan because she's enormously skilled at making people feel miserable about themselves, and so is he. They put each other down and tell each other off, and somewhere amidst the roiling negativity Anderson tells himself, is deep affection.

*Anderson hates that Lestrade doesn't hate Sherlock. He hates that the DI is willing to go both ways, play both sides of the field, and entertain Sherlock's ridiculous antics and snappish personality, as well as his own. Not that he's ever ridiculous or snappish. Not ever.

*Anderson once saw his uni girlfriend snogging his best friend. He walked away from the incident remarkably calm and detached, thinking that he would break up with his girlfriend when he saw her next and simply start fresh. It hurt though, and he never liked windows anyway.

*Anderson suffers from an acute case of low self-esteem, which is ridiculous when you consider how amazing he is. Also narcissism.

*If a rumor reaches you that Anderson was sorted into Hufflepuff on Pottermore, he asks you to dismiss it. He never was sorted, but if he _was_, he would much rather be a Slytherin. Though one would never guess it, he owns a tee shirt that says, "Believe in Voldemort!" His wife bought it for him.

Perhaps he should talk to her about that.


	4. Greg Lestrade

*Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade has known Sherlock for the better part of five years. He was a kind of preface to John; the only person at Scotland Yard who refused to ridicule, insult, or ignore Sherlock on behalf of his team. He knows Sherlock is a flawed human, but he also knows that is not enough reason to judge someone so harshly. And Sherlock has gotten the Yard out of innumerable tight spots, solved myriad "unsolvable" crimes and generally made things more interesting for all of them. Yes, there are those who can't seem to stand him—Anderson and Donovan, for starters—but Lestrade believes that they can dislike Sherlock Holmes and still respect him. He can attest to both.

*The night Lestrade met Sherlock, he, Anderson, Sergeant Donovan and DI Dimmock were cruising the Thames in a quiet police motorboat, shining their torches into the water and searching feverishly for signs of a recent drowning. At one point, Anderson claimed that he saw the body of a woman in the depths below. Pulses racing, the four of them began sending radio messages to Scotland Yard, "There's a body! Yes, a body! A woman, should we—what? No, should we attempt to recover her body?" As Lestrade spoke, he saw something curious: a glass bottle floating near the boat's edge. Inside it _was a folded piece of paper._ Lestrade flung himself at the bottle, snatched it up and hurriedly unscrewed the cap. He stared at the single word on the scrap of paper. _Wrong_. What the hell did that mean? Then Lestrade made the mistake (or so it had seemed at the time) of glancing left and seeing a pale-faced man treading water ten feet away. "Shit!" yelled Lestrade. They insisted the man come aboard. They gave him a blanket—orange. They asked him who the hell he was. "Sherlock Holmes," said the man. "And you're excruciatingly wrong, by the way."

*Like Sherlock, Greg uses nicotine patches to focus during particularly difficult cases. He's more ashamed of this than some people, so he does his best to hide the mild addiction with long sleeves and excuses. His other mild addiction is to crap telly—any of it, all of it. People would say he's wasting his life, but he doesn't feel he has much of one, anyway.

*Greg loves his wife. Loves her to pieces. But pieces is what he's in each time he hears of her new affair partners. Dave. Harvey. Ronald. Screw them all. Lestrade has never, would never, will never betray his wife. Sometimes it is who we are not that makes us who we are.

*Greg really, really likes John. He sees elements of himself in John, though he envies the doctor's infallible patience, blatant loyalty and ability to make Sherlock laugh. People are kidding themselves if they pretend they've never wanted to make Sherlock Holmes break into a giggle. Who hasn't?

*Sometimes Lestrade goes to a pub with John on nights when they don't have a case. Sherlock is always invited, but he never comes. Instead, John and Greg will sit and have a pint and talk about all sorts of things. Lost love, pranks on mates in university, Afghanistan in the rain, betrayal, Anderson's hair, everything. And sometimes Greg will open up to John about pre-John Sherlock, and how stubborn, insecure and lost the man was. And John will listen with quiet eyes, and Greg will see precisely why Sherlock keeps John around: it's lovely to be listened to.

*Lestrade is tired of having to defend his friendship with Sherlock to Sergeant Donovan. If Anderson is irritating, she's equally ruthless (and Lestrade really hates her high heels).

*There is something so goddamn satisfying about sneaking into Sherlock's flat, settling in, and waiting for the cherished moment when the detective springs through his open door and cries, "You can't just break into my flat!" No drug can produce that particular high.

*Greg has a desperate sweet tooth. If presented with sugar in any form (short of being mixed with petrol) he will devour it without regret. Until later, when Doctor John Watson is chiding him for his eating habits and supplying him with peppermint tea. Lestrade always admires Sherlock for his anti-sweet tooth, for the iron resolve that restrains him from eating—or craving—sweets. Lestrade has donuts; John has jam, and Sherlock? He has willpower and a deprived scowl.

*If he's speaking honestly, Greg will tell you that he didn't believe Sherlock would survive, that night. He had looked in the detective's blank, bloodshot eyes, seen the gray pallor of his skin, felt the weakness in his limbs as he struggled to crawl from the alley. No one survived overdoses of that caliber, no one. Still, he called Mycroft (who came with surprising speed) and watched as the elder Holmes took his brother away, half supporting him, half carrying him. And then Lestrade had doubled over and vomited, while Sally Donovan and Anderson looked on with faux pity. It is very difficult to cry and be sick at once, but Lestrade accomplished the task with ease. Only when it was morning, and Mycroft called to say that Sherlock would be all right, did Lestrade return to his learned British stoicism. He kept calm. He carried on.

*Molly. Greg likes her—more than ever, actually. In fact, it will be a long while before he forgets the image of her in that gorgeous black dress at Christmas Eve, and her happily surprised little smile to find him still in town. Again, he would never, ever betray his wife. But when—if!—they ever separate, he might like to try his hand at Miss Hooper. If she's not too infatuated with Sherlock to look his way.

*There are three things Lestrade can't live without. His tartan socks (They're lovely and warm and pleasantly Scottish). Donuts (They would be utterly perfect if they just didn't come with those pesky holes in the middle). Cases (Since he was a little boy, Lestrade was completely in love with the idea of being a detective and solving murder mysteries. Now, he knows it's not as glamorous as all that, but he still loves his job—even if that means being upstaged by Sherlock Holmes every other minute).

*Greg doesn't know if there's a name for this, but he loves words that sound the same, but mean the opposite. Whole and hole, for example. A part and apart. Well, a part is two words, but still—you get the idea. When he pointed this out to his primary school mates, they laughed in his face and called him several rude things. One day, twenty years later, Sherlock mentioned the very same thing to Lestrade as they were inspecting a body for signs of acute gangrene. That was the very moment Greg began to like Sherlock. Really, really like him.


	5. Mrs Hudson

Mrs. Hudson:

*Although Sherlock can be one for dramatic, overblown statements, he really was not kidding when he said that England would fall should Mrs. Hudson leave Baker Street. Without her kindly assistance, affectionate scolding, and resigned tolerance for eyeballs clogging the sink (again!) Sherlock would most likely died of hunger, severe acid burns, or poisoning. And there was the time when he fell inelegantly from the ceiling (experiment…) and Mrs. Hudson actually broke the door down in answer to his moans of pain. She is not afraid of stepping on Sherlock's toes if it's for his greater good, not afraid of force-feeding the detective once in a while, not afraid of listening to his petulant scoffs—"I'm not a child, I don't need you to take care of me, I can take care of myself"—and nodding and smiling, then going ahead and taking care of him anyway. That is what the best sort of landlady is for.

*Mrs. Hudson is the only person who has ever hugged Sherlock. Multiple times, actually. One might protest that Sherlock's parents must have hugged him occasion, but they never did. They would give him a brief pat on the shoulder or a squeeze of the hand, and nothing more. There is a lot of enthusiastic, rather shippy chatter that Sherlock and John may have exchanged a hug here and there—and perhaps they have—but that's all anyone's going to know about that.

*Mrs. Hudson is really quite fashionable. She loves jewel tones, textured fabric, and she, Sherlock and Molly all quite enjoy the color purple. In fact, Mrs. Hudson bought Sherlock his first purple button down when she saw the state of his clothes, most of which were tattered and left over from the good detective's primary school days.

*Though Mrs. Hudson has had a weak left hip for years, her problem was exacerbated when a menacing looking man burst into her flat with an actual scalpel, having mistaken 221C for 221B. The situation involved a good deal of running and shrieking, and eventually concluded with a frightening tumble down the stairs and an over-protective Sherlock. Since that unfortunate occurrence, Mrs. Hudson has made sure to keep this sign her door: "This is 221C—Sherlock Holmes lives in 221B. Please leave any weaponry at the door. Thank you!"

*When Mrs. Hudson was eight (in those days she was called Martha) she was given a brand new bicycle. Thrilled, she wheeled the glorious contraption into the street and taught herself to ride it in just under an hour. She was so chuffed with her new ability that she rode her bicycle much farther from home than planned, and was enjoying the experience wholeheartedly when she found herself in the path of an oncoming lorry. Not fancying the idea of being smashed to bits, Martha Hudson pedaled across a low bridge and headfirst in the Thames. While she survived the fall, her beloved bicycle did not. It took her hour to learn to ride a bike and forty-three minutes to discover that she wanted nothing to do with one for the rest of her life.

*Mrs. Hudson adores what she calls "trash telly." She was devastated when her favourite host, Connie Prince, was murdered and is always on the lookout for new programmes, should you hear of any. Her newest obsession is _Britain's Got Talent_, though she cringes instinctively each time Simon Cowell opens his acerbic mouth to speak. She will never admit this to Sherlock, but she feels that he and Simon would get on swimmingly. Really, it would be quite the case study.

*Her now deceased husband was akin to an angry Sherlock dipped in acid, rubbed with raw sewage, and then rolled in broken glass and bitter thoughts. Lord knows what Mrs. Hudson was doing with such a horrid twat. Her saving grace is that she never changed her name in matrimony; what would she do with herself they had been known as Mr. _and _Mrs. Butts? His execution was sadly, but truly better for all involved.

*As far as Mrs. Hudson is concerned, Mycroft Holmes can rot in a ditch. She is frequently enraged at the elder Holmes' inability to care for his younger brother, his pompous arrogance, and the indirect insults he often directs at her. Before John Watson, she was the only person _there _for Sherlock, and Mycroft should be damn well grateful. This buzzing angst seizes Mrs. Hudson at odd moments, and after several heated minutes of ranting to the telly, she'll make herself a cup of extra-strength tea, indulge in a few four-letter expletives, then throw a couple of Hail Mary's in for good measure.

*It was an honest mistake, as Mrs. Hudson apologized later to Sherlock. Anyone would have assumed that—well…it wasn't her fault for believing John and Sherlock were couple, was it? Had any scarcely observant person seen the way Sherlock gazed furtively at John, noted John's blushiness, and watched the lovely blend of their personalities, they would have been listening for wedding bells, as well. Sherlock is still angry that the first thing Mrs. Hudson said after he explained that he and John were _not_ a couple was, "What a shame."

*Mrs. Hudson cannot stand tobacco smoke. Besides the fact that it gives her an instant migraine, it also reminds her of father who died of lung cancer when he was merely fifty-two. Before Sherlock discovered those dreadful nicotine patches, she made him go out on the street if he wanted to smoke, even in the pouring rain. And she would watch him from her window, feeling a bit affectionate and a bit blue, wondering what was running through that complex mind and hoping she would never be alive to see him die. Not ever.

*Mrs. Hudson is not a housekeeper. She never has been, she never will be. So why, why on earth does the smartest man she knows insist on addressing her as his housekeeper and expecting she act like one, too? Still, she supposes that while the running gags, shenanigans, and mishaps drive her mad, they are what keep her young. For that, she is passionately grateful.

*Once, when neither Sherlock nor John realised she was nearby, Mrs. Hudson listened in a rather flirtatious and altogether _philandery_ conversation of theirs in the hall outside her flat. The chat involved a lot of "Brilliant's!" from John and "It's nothing's," from Sherlock. Then Sherlock murmured something that made John giggle helplessly, and well, it was all Mrs. Hudson could do not to cry, "Get a room!"

Of course she knows what that means. She's not dead yet.

_A/N: Let's here it for the lovely Mrs. Hudson! *applause* Feel free to review!_

_-Spark Writer-_


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